by ßusan Griffith

Instead of archaeology finds and field notes gathering dust on shelves or being packed away in boxes to mold in damp basements, the discoveries are going digital at Case Western Reserve University.

James Flanagan

Case's University Library will use a three-year, $385,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to develop new electronic tools to record archaeological discoveries and observations in real time from the field. The virtual archive is a collaborative project of Case, Vanderbilt University and Virginia Tech University.

Leading the development of these new tools will be James Flanagan, the Paul J. Hallinan Professor Emeritus in religion at Case.

"The world is moving toward library systems of collaboratively held digital collections that take advantage of integrated information technology systems to provide access to distributed information," said Joanne Eustis, director of the University Library. "Case libraries aspire to be at the forefront of the digital library movement."

The NSF's Information Technology Research Division selected the Case archaeology project from 1,475 applications, and it was one of fewer than 150 funded.

Eventually the technologies, called DigKit (the field recording tools) and DigBase (an enormous catalogue of Near East documents), will find a permanent Web home at Electronic Tools and Ancient Near Eastern Archives (ETANA), housed at the campus library of Vanderbilt University.

ETANA is a consortium of institutions that includes Case, Vanderbilt and Virginia Tech along with the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, archaeology institutes at Tel Aviv University and Mississippi State University, the American Oriental Society, the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Society of Biblical Literature.

"While the Case libraries straddle the world of virtual and traditional collections, we believe in the potential of digital libraries to transform research, learning and society," Eustis said. "Like teams of scholars, librarians and their academic colleagues are acting strategically through projects like ETANA and funding opportunities such as the NSF award to share knowledge and resources. Possibilities for collaboration and contributions in the future appear boundless."

Flanagan is working with co-investigators Eustis; Douglas A. Knight, Vanderbilt University's Professor of Hebrew Bible; and Virginia Tech computer scientists Edward Fox and Weiguo Fan.

"This is the first time that library science, computer science and Near Eastern archaeology have worked in close relationship to preserve and disseminate archaeological data and reports," Flanagan said.

Return to the online edition of the 11-6-03 Campus News.

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